Rainbow connections

If you can't connect ponies, rainbows, unicorns, Kermit, joy and immersion, read at the link below. But I suppose you could, with a little thought, connect all those things one way or another.

SandraDodd.com/mlp
photo by Amber Ivey
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Two for one

I like photos with reflections. Sometimes they're clear and sometimes they're interestingly changed. Always, though, you see the two things.

Connections and contrasts are the way brains sort. What is the same, and what is different?

Covers of songs; different paintings of the same object or building or person; woodworking projects made from the same pattern by different carpenters with different types of wood... Examining pairs is like playing a game of "spot the difference." Each difference might have a natural explanation, or was a conscious decision on the part of an artist.

What a rich life you and your children might have in those moments that seeing, playing and learning are the same valuable substance.

Two things, two words
photo by Dan Vilter

Philosophical cookies

What makes "a watermelon cookie"? These didn't taste like watermelon. They weren't made of watermelon. The term here is all about their appearance.

Watermelon is usually considered to be healthy, but tourists and host families in India are reminded that if someone should not drink "the local water," that they should also avoid watermelon, as that fruit takes in and stores some of the potentially dangerous (to visitors) elements of local water.

These cookies have nothing to do with India, or with bad water, except wait.... I just connected them, in a way.

Some parents might cringe (or worse) at the idea of my joy in something involving sugar and food coloring, but as I'm already talking about memories and connections, I can remind readers that parental disapproval (especially when it's overblown or overstated) does more damage than sugar-coated food-colored sugar with chocolate chips ever could.

I learned the watermelon cookie recipe from a younger friend, when she asked me if I could make them for her wedding reception. I did. She had horses. My daughter, who was eight years old or so and learning to braid, was able to help groom and braid the mane of one of those horses, and work some ribbons in there somehow. Later she did that with people, and My Little Ponies.

My granddaughter wasn't born when all that happened, but now she has helped make those cookies. She might never meet Sarah, who had watermelon-cookie memories from her own childhood.

Connections and memories involve people, places, newnesses, learning, amusement, trivia, and thoughts about the meaning of life, and of reality. The more naturally people can see and appreciate those things, the better life and learning will be.


Report on the making of watermelon cookies
Photos by Sandra Dodd—
this one is a link:

Rearview Mirrors

We have been somewhere, even as we're moving forward.

It's not good to always look back, but there is safety and comfort in reviewing what's already been seen and done. Very often, connections among the past, present and future create and enrich moments, special days, laughter and learning.

Rearview Mirror Views
photo by Renee Biggerstaff

Too busy or too quiet?

No human in all the history of the world has, or could have guessed right every time, about what to say, how much to say, how quickly, in what tone.

Most humans can get a bit better at it, as time goes on.

Gaze without speaking and/or explore connections
photo by Gail Higgins

Connections and mysteries

You can see what is coming up, usually. Very often, you have a plan, and know where you're headed.

What comes next follows on what came before, but you won't get to write the script and control all the players.

Things happen, and schedules change. Keep your balance. If you keep your principles in mind, and at hand, decisions will be easier.

Real and good reasons
photo by Ester Siroky

"L" is for Learning

This photo is the background for the "L" on the new(ish) Learn Nothing Day logo.

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Real learning, the kind of learning humans are hard wired to do, is about discovering connections between one thing and dozens of things. What those connections will have in common is interest.

—Joyce Fetteroll, saved at Real Learning

The photo first appeared here in 2018: Laugh, think, smile
Thank you, Amber Ivey.

On-the-job learning

Life. People can live lives, even little kids live lives, without preparation, learning on the job, as they go. They can learn while doing real things with real happiness and real success.

SandraDodd.com/connections/cocktail
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Life as Show-and-Tell

People with collections have collections of stories. Objects have origins, and connections. If you ask people about their things, they will tell you stories about themselves.

Most people think of "exploring" as going to new places, but exploring ideas, music, foods, games and each other's experiences and stories, within a family or group of friends, creates an environment of learning.

The first paragraph is new today.
The second paragraph is here.
photo by Sandra Dodd

Where do rainbows come from?

This cat seems to have rainbows coming from its nether parts. When I said so, Brie said it just needed a Pop Tart. I didn't get it, but Brie, and then Holly pointed me toward Nyan Cat, and I learned things. Useful things? Used to explore and to get more jokes! Usefully made me laugh.

Cartoon unicorns are out there producing rainbows, too.

Other Rainbow Connections? Noah, leprechauns, Dorothy Gail from Kansas, Kermit the Frog, The Rolling Stones, John Sebastian, and all the others you've already thought of or will remember or discover later.

photo by Brie Jontry

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Nyan Cat was created by Chris Torres, in Texas, in 2011.

Pleasant associations

Finding ways not to be grumpy about dishes is a good model and practice field for other choices in life.

We get our dishes from thrift stores, mostly. If one of them bugs me, it can go back to the thrift store.

Sometimes when a mom is really frustrated with doing the dishes, it can help to get rid of dishes with bad memories and connections, or put them in storage for a while. Happy, fun dishes with pleasant associations are easier to wash.

SandraDodd.com/dishes
photo by Gail Higgins

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Parts or versions of the text above have appeared in this blog five times before. It's simple, but people forget.

Doing and thinking

Learning to see learning is a process. It's part of deschooling, for the parents.

When learning starts to show, in its natural state, you will see that children are processing what they do and what they think about what they've done. They'll be making connections to everything else in their history and surroundings, to other experiences and imaginings.

When unschooling begins to really flow, the process of learning is the processing of experiences and connections.

SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Nina Haley

International this'n'that

That ornament is on my Christmas tree, in Albuquerque. It's not new this year, but was mailed to me from Julie, in England. She got it at Tesco; I like Tesco. She sent tea, too.

Santa is based on a Saint who lived in Asia Minor, and in this felt model of the Christmas character St. Nicholas evolved into, he's riding a llama. Llamas are from the Andes mountains in South America. The ornament itself might have been made in India, or in Nepal. There are people reading this in South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. We have subscribers on six continents. Some shop at Tesco; some might have llamas; some are celebrating Christmas.

Best wishes to all readers of Just Add Light and Stir. This is post #4,000.

Connections
photo by Sandra Dodd

Loving the non-linear

Forget the linear approach to learning we grew up with. For instance, we learned that the way to learn is to read "all the important" stuff about a subject gathered and packaged for our convenience in a textbook and then move on in line to the next package of information.

Sure, sometimes an interest will cause kids to gather up a huge chunk of learning all at once. This is easy to see. And easy to overvalue as the "best" way to learn.

More often kids will slowly gather interesting tidbits, making connections as things occur to them to create a foundation. They'll add pieces here and there over the years to build on that foundation. This is not so easy to see going on. And very easy to undervalue.

—Joyce Fetteroll

Some of the fifth of Five Steps to Unschooling
photo by Kinsey Norris

Three

It can be fun to play with the idea of three. I had a literature professor say "Three trees make a row." He meant that finding three instances of something in a piece of writing is worth pursuing.

I thought of real trees, though, and more often three trees make a triangle.

That idea has amused me for a long time, of rows and triangles. Finding, seeing, hearing three things that are similar can make fun connections worth pursuing.

There are threes in literature, lyrics, art, games, rhythms, and on clocks. Whether you have young children to amuse with this or not, maybe look around for and play around with threes.

Patterns
photo by Cathy Koetsier

Other aspects

Usually I remind people to see things directly.

Today I'm inviting people to play with light and images though, and—just for fun—to look very indirectly. Trick your eyes; trick other people's eyes, but sweetly, like little magic tricks.

There can be learning there, too. As long as those involved are having fun, good memories and connections will be made. When someone's not having fun anymore, go back to being directly there.

Reflections on Mirrors
photo by Holly Dodd

Your individual self

There is a hanging lamp at our house, in the entryway. It reminds me of restaurant furnishings of the southwestern U.S. in the late 1960s and '70s. It's iron, with sheets of colored glass, in blue and amber. It makes it easy for me to remember that the house was built in the early 1970s.

The associations I have with this lamp won't match those of my children, who have seen it most of their lives. Even my husband, also from New Mexico, probably has other thoughts and connections. Visitors, depending on their ages and experiences, will see it and images or words might come to them.

It's good to know that the pictures in your head are your own, and the connections that go with them. Your children's experiences and views of the world are their individual own selves'.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd

Perspective and patterns

The patterns you and your children see are worth exploring and expanding. The connections you make are your model of the moment, and ultimately part of your model of the universe—past, present, future, imagined, revised, spooky and sweet.

SandraDodd.com/perspective
photo by Annie Regan

Shapes and meanings

Toddlers want to name things. They're learning words. This picture might show a circle and a square.

For an older child, thoughts might be about "window" or port hole or whether it's still a window if you can't see through it.

Some adults might think about materials or purposes, and others about what plant is portrayed and why.

Things are seen at different levels and depths by different people in different circumstances. Connections are made to prior imagery and knowledge in each viewer. Thoughts of what something is or isn't, and ideas about what it is like or unlike, are the thoughts learning is made of.

That's how learning works.

Connections: How Learning Works
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Symbolism

An angel, holding an image of dice, in a church in Wales, in reference to a story about Roman soldiers near Jerusalem, long before that.

Light from the same sun.

Connections!

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Sandra Dodd, St. Teilo’s church at St. Fagans Museum